9:02 pm: The Padres paid a $500K posting fee to Makita’s Japanese team, the Seibu Lions, Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune tweets.
7:35 pm: The Padres have announced the signing.
9:02 am: The Padres have reached a two-year, $3.8MM agreement with Japanese righty Kazuhisa Makita. Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports reported the news on Twitter, noting that the team is likely to use him as a bullpen arm.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports first reported likelihood of a signing yesterday, which MLBTR covered here. As we noted at that time, reports that Makita would be posted surfaced around the same time that Shohei Ohtani was posted. The former Pacific League Rookie of the Year owns a career ERA of 2.83 across 921 1/3 innings, though he’s barely struck out one batter for every two innings pitched during that span.
Notably, Makita’s fastball sits in the low 80’s; he relies more on its movement and some deception in his delivery. He pitches submarine-style, like Brad Ziegler and Peter Moylan. The 33-year-old stands at just 5’10” and weights 181 pounds.
Makita will add to a thin San Diego bullpen that includes the likes of Brad Hand, Kirby Yates and Phil Maton at the back end. His contributions, along with a hopeful return to health by former phenom Carter Capps, could pave the way for improvements to a bullpen that ranked 24th among MLB teams in ERA last season, and 29th in WAR. That’s good news for a Padres pitching staff whose rotation averaged just over 5 1/3 innings per start in 2017.
Joe Thatcher wasn’t available for the Padres reunion tour so they got this side thrower
Good for them! Hosmer though…
I’m sure our starters will be going much deeper in to games this year…. with Chris Young, Tyson Ross, and Clayton Richard at the helm…
Who are they dropping from 40 man to add Makita and Stammen?
Lockett, Gale, or Szczur would be my guess. They could have something brewing as far as a trade involving Hand as well, which could open up a spot on the 40 man.
Lockett? Nah
Gale and sizzler yes
Rondon was DFA. Solarte was traded. Those are the two spots they needed.
I know he’s new to the MLB but I thought he’d sign for more than that.
Unproven at mlb, 33 years old- teams arent exactly lining up for that. Moreso kicking thw tires.
Realistically, Padres were only team interested enough to offer 2 years not 1.
5 K/9 vs 2 BB/9. If this starts to go south, oh dear…
Oh dear? They’ll lose $4m…
Losing $4 mil in a span of two years for a team that isn’t committed to any big contracts isn’t a big deal. If there’s anything the Padres should worry about is signing Hosmer for 7 years $140 mil
They forgot to mention Stammen who was a pretty big signing
Different article
Read the list of players in the bullpen. No mention of stammen who was signed prior
Um.. scroll down like 3… padres re sign stammen
You’re welcome
Wow, you’re a genius, except I was talking about this article. Hukd un fonikz werkd fer me
And you’re a moron dude. Learn to type. You said nothing about stammen I told you it was there.
What do you mean? Read my statement…says, they forgot to mention Stammen, meaning THIS ARTICLE. Derp
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the signing wasn’t official until after the article. I got a notification couple hours ago of the Padres confirming the signing.
Okay, so I just checked the Padres official Instagram and Twitter page and they confirmed it four hours ago. So there’s that. MLB.com confirmed it at 2:45 p.m.
That is probably because Stammen is not a late inning reliever like Hand, Yates, Maton, and Capps. Most of his appearances were in the 5th, 6th, and 7th innings.
This is like the consolation prize for not landing Ohtani.
Its a two year deal. Who cares about his age?
LOL! You beat me to it, some booby prize huh!
He’s going to fun to use in online ranked season on mlb the show
I get screwed over every time with Pat Neshek. When it’s righty on righty, it’s an automatic L for me.
Gotta get the season finest neshek he’s lights out for me
Nobody Cares……It’s the Madres.
get off my lawn
No one cares about your team chump
chill slowtalker. You’re on a Padres thread. So maybe you do care just a tad
Dude chill
I’m talking about that scrub above
Padres always find good bullpen arms. Nice mix with the others, can’t have every reliever with the same arsenal. Now – go get Hosmer! Make a statement like the Nationals did with Jason Werth years ago.
The Jason Werth signing has been slightly better than terrible… I don’t think he is a good comparison to make.
This guy is the real deal. He throws about as fast as a hs pitcher but his delivery is unlike anyone in the MLB, even when it comes to side winders. I can’t wait to watch him pitch on That’s Nasty.
This guy is a hidden gem, I think he’ll be better than Ohtani and the hype